Five failed rescue missions
by Shenandoah Risu
Summary: They aren't all made of high drama. For the Destiny crew, failures are a fact of daily life. Various SGU characters, set in Season 1.


**Title: Five failed rescue missions  
>Author: Shenandoah Risu<br>Rating**: PG-13  
><strong>Content Flags<strong>: none  
><strong>Spoilers<strong>: SGU Season 1  
><strong>Word Count<strong>: 718  
><strong>Characters<strong>: various SGU characters  
><strong>Summary<strong>: _He leaves with the tool box, as they all mourn yet another failed rescue mission aboard the Destiny._  
><strong>Author's Notes<strong>: Written for prompt set 103 at the LJ Comm sg1_five_things.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own SGU. I wouldn't know what to do with it. Now, Young... Young I'd know what to do with. ;-)

**Thanks for reading! Feedback = Love. ;-)**

**oOo**

**Five failed rescue missions**

Greer tries very hard not to laugh when he sees the lean-to that Chloe built. "It keeps falling down," she wails. "It's more of a… a lean-fro! Or a lie-on-the-floor!"

He pats her on the shoulder. "Let's see what we can do," he says, "Marines to the rescue!" He spits in his hands and grabs the first supporting pole. It's a good sapling that she picked out, he thinks, and the way she wrapped the tarp isn't bad either. But the moment he picks it up the whole thing just unravels.

Chloe spreads her hands.

"I only know shoelace bows," she admits.

Greer nods. Well, in that case, there's nothing that will save the pitiful little structure.

"All right, Miss Armstrong. We'll start over. Let me show you how to tie a bowline..."

**oOo**

Lisa Park is on KP duty. She enjoys getting away from the Apple Core once in a while, and Darren Becker is just too cute for words in her opinion, and he's so easy to distract when she slips her hands under his shirt. Becker is ticklish, too, and she loves to make him squirm.

"Lisa... oh god, stop it, stop it…" and he squeals like a school girl. Lisa hugs him and they laugh together.

An acrid smell makes them look up, and they both notice the pot of purple sweet potatoes boiling furiously.

Becker yelps and turns the heat down, grabs a spoon and stirs quickly, and Lisa clamps her nose shut with two fingers as the smell gets worse. He adds water, stirs some more, scrapes out some burned mass, adds more water, stirs again.

Finally he pulls the pot off the hot plate, dejectedly.

Lisa snuggles up to him.

"It's all right", she purrs, "It'll make great compost for the new plant beds."

**oOo**

The gate shuts down and Dr. Inman directs the returning group of food gatherers to a storage room so their stash can be sorted. Brody sets his crate down and wipes his face on his sleeve. Patting his shirt pocket he suddenly freezes.

"What's wrong?" Volker looks at him with concern.

Brody looks around surreptitiously.

"The condom – it's gone!"

Volker sputters. "The what?"

"I had a condom packet in my shirt pocket when I went planet-side, and now it's gone!"

Volker elbows him. "You don't remember having sex? Do you at least know with whom?"

"Smartass…"

Brody hightails it back to the gate room. The next group is about to leave. He joins them and then searches frantically through the grove of trees where he'd been picking fruit.

The condom is gone.

**oOo**

His team mates used to laugh at him when he packed extra socks and underwear for every mission, no matter how short or benign. When they escaped from Icarus he had no time to plan, and it's come back to haunt him. His socks are threadbare at the toes and heels, and no matter what he does he's not sure he can fix them.

Colonel Young knows how to darn socks, sort of, but it's next to impossible to do it with the coarse green thread he has in his tent repair kit. No matter how gently he pulls the thread through the knit, it shears off another loop of yarn and another run appears.

He sighs deeply, puts the socks down and gives in to defeat.

**oOo**

They all crowd around the door, all the scientists and engineers who usually slave away in the Control Room. Rush looks horrified, Brody is brooding darkly in a corner, Volker's lower lip is quivering slightly, Lisa has tears in her eyes, Eli is pale as a sheet and, standing next to them, there's Colonel Young, frowning.

Airman Dunning isn't used to this kind of pressure.

He sticks out his hand. "Wrench?"

Eli scrambles to hand him the tool.

"Hammer?"

Brody jumps at it.

"Flathead screwdriver?"

Rush moves like lightning.

Dunning lets out an exasperated sigh and turns around. Half a dozen pairs of desperate eyes look at him expectantly.

"I'm sorry, guys. I know this was the toilet closest to the Control Room, but it's dead. Something in the feeder lines." He shrugs and leaves with the tool box, as they all mourn yet another failed rescue mission aboard the Destiny.


End file.
